Activity

1. Explain to children that in the video, Curious George has gone to a dog show and has invited many of the dogs home. When chaos ensues, Curious George decides to sort the dogs according to certain characteristics.
2. As the children watch the video, ask if they can figure out how many dogs have followed Curious George home. Then, play the video clip "Curious George: Dog Counter". Let it play from 7:42-8:19, then stop the video. Ask the children how many dogs were in the house. Reinforce that it is impossible to know since the dogs were running around. George needs to come up with a plan and sorting might help. Now, play the video from 7:42 to 9:43. Explain that when George sorted the dogs, he counted each on only once, so he could tell exactly how many he had.
3. Have the children each pick a dog card from a deck of dog cards (there are six cards that can be cut out of the printable). Tell them that they are the dog they chose. Ask them how they think their bark would sound and let them try it.
4. Tell the children that the dogs need to be sorted so we can find out how many we have. First, tell them we are sorting by size: big dogs and little dogs. Show them where in the room the big dogs will go and where the little dogs will go. Let the children go to the area where they think they belong. Then add up the number of big dogs and the number of little dogs and report those numbers to the children. Now tell them that we are going to re-sort the dogs by hairy and not-so-hairy. Show them where in the room each group will go. Let them go to the area where they think they belong. Then add up the number in each group. Discuss why the total number is the same -- the same number of dogs is there. They are just sorted differently.